An Act of Kindness
by DaydreamingTurtle
Summary: Set when Lily and Severus are nine, they meet for the first time and Lily sees what Severus has to put up with in a half and half family. Rated accordingly for implied bad language. One shot.


This is just a bit of nothingness I wrote over the summer and have been too lazy to type out before now. I'm just trying to get back into the swing of writing stories, since I've only done poetry for the past year (or more). Please enjoy.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Never have. Never will.

* * *

An Act of Kindness

Young Petunia Evans galloped down the sidewalk to catch up to her younger sister and mother. She had a good, juicy piece of gossip to share with them, burning on her tongue, and wanted to catch up with them as soon as possible.

"Mum! Lily! Mum!" Petunia wheezed. She slowed down a bit once she saw that Lily and her mum had stopped to wait.

"Mum, Lily, guess what _I _saw!" Petunia said, full of enthusiasm. Her mum shrugged her shoulder.

"I've no idea, sweetheart," her mum replied.

"Was it a dinosaur?!" Lily asked, overzealous, forcing her shocking green eyes wide. Petunia gave her a dirty look.

"No, it was not a dinosaur, stupid! _I _saw that Arthur Weasley snogging Molly Forsythe! In plain sight! On a park bench!" Petunia looked extremely pleased with herself, but all her mother could say was, "And...?"

Lily giggled.

Petunia's eyes bulged. "Mum! Our neighbour Molly! Snogging! In broad daylight!"

"Petunia..." Mrs Evans sighed and shook her head. "Arthur and Molly are married now. Surely I told you that? No? Well, they are, so it's fine."

Lily giggled again. "Silly Tuney," she said. And they continued to walk.

* * *

"I wish you had seen a dinosaur. That's better than seeing some couple snogging. What kind of dinosaur would _you_ want to see, Tuney? I'd want to see that one flying kind. I wish I could fly. Do you wanna fly, Tuney?..."

Lily babbled on pleasantly while Petunia fumed silently beside her. If asked, the only thing Petunia would've been able to recall from Lily's monologue was the word, "Tuney." It was close to Lily's every other word, making it very easy for Petunia to pretend she was listening.

The two girls hiked behind their mother, when Mrs Evans suddenly stopped. They'd reached some of the local shops, and coming out of the closest one was Mrs Snape, and her son, Severus. Lily and Tuney walked right into their mother before realising she'd stopped. Both girls peaked as sneaky as they could round their mum to see why.

Petunia stifled a laugh directed toward Severus. He was wearing Wellies, shorts, a dressy button-down shirt, and an oversize dinner coat that would probably fit a man twice his age better. He had a pale, skinny face, black eyes, and inky black hair that brushed his shoulders. Only at this point did his face have any colour; he blushed at the mortification of being seen by someone his own age in public. He tried to hide behind his mother who, too, had a slightly ashamed look on her unpleasant face.

"Eileen, Severus," Mrs Evans said stiffly.

"Kathleen, Petunia, Lily," Mrs Snape said equally stiffly.

Lily waved, trying to be a bit friendly. "Nice to meet you, Severus," she said warmly. Petunia said nothing. Severus nodded, a hint of a smile tugging on the sides of his thin mouth. "Hello, Lily," he said quietly.

Eileen gripped Severus's shoulder, said, "We must be getting home now," and they both turned around and walked away. As they did, Mrs Snape began to speak.

"Hmm, silly Muggle shops. They never have what I need. We may have to run to Knockturn Alley later to pick up some powdered hen's teeth for your father's headcold ... did... did you know that Muggle girl, Severus?" Eileen inquired. Severus said nothing, and his gaze fell to his feet. They both stopped walking.

Lily noticed Petunia and her mum walking into a shop, and yelled, "I'll be right there! I hafta tie my shoe!" Her mother was convinced enough. She pushed open the shop door and she and Petunia walked inside. Lily peeked over her shoulder to see Mrs Snape and Severus still standing there. She crept closer and the conversation became clearer.

"... don't think Lily s a Muggle, Mother. I've seen her and her sister in the park before. Lily actually found a bowtruckle once, but Petunia said it was only a walking stick — Petunia's as Muggle as they come."Severus glanced up from his boots and into his mother's face.

"So she's a Mudblood then..." Eileen's voice dripped with cynical criticism. Severus cringed a little — had he seen Lily?

"It's better than a Muggle!" Severus shouted before slapping his hand oer his mouth. His mum let out a sad, angry laugh.

"Yes, it' better than a Muggle. But anything's better than something like your father." Lily could feel the coldness in Mrs Snape's voice.

"I'm sorry, Mum," Severus said, staring intently at his feet again.

Mrs Snape gave a sad smile. "It's all right, son. You learn form your mistakes..." She then held out her hand at her hip and Severus took hold of it. They began to walk, hand-in-hand, back home. Lily had gone unseen. She ran into the shop to meet up with Petunia and her mother.

* * *

"Mummy, where do the Snapes live?" Lily asked, trying to be non-chalant. All four Evans' sat around a small square table; it was dinnertime. Lily twirled her fork, waiting for an answer. Her father looked over his glasses and the paper he was reading. His eyes were the exact same as Lily's.

Her mother stopped short in her bite of food. "Well, Lily," she coughed, then cleared her throat, "the Snapes live in a place called Spinner's End. You know where it is, I think. Why do you ask?"

Lily merely shrugged. Petunia eyed her suspiciously.

"The Snapes, you say?" Mr Evans asked suddenly. "You mean that cr— peculiar family with thee kid?" Mrs Evans nodded her head slightly. Mr Evans chuckled. "Poor kid," he muttered.

A fork clattered.

"Mummy, Daddy? May I be done? I ate all my peas," Lily said innocently. She left before being officially excused, then bounded up the stairs. Her bedroom door slammed shut.

"Me too, Mummy. I'm full," Petunia chirped, and hopped off of her chair to follow her younger sister up to her room. She opened the door without knocking to see Lily sitting on the floor with her toy dinosaur collection. She had one in each hand, and was inspecting both closely.

"Oh, hello, Tuney. Which do you like best?" Lily asked, holding both dinosaurs up for Petunia to see.

"The purple one," she said, not even looking (A/N: There was no purple one!) "What're you doing, anyway?"

"Nothin'," Lily said hastily, examining the dinosaurs ever closer. Her fist closed triumphantly around the little orange pterodactyl — her favourite.

Petunia stared intently at lily, her brain processing quickly to make up something, _anything_, to make Lily confess to her goings-on. A sly smile spread across her face.

"You like _Severus_, don't you?" Petunia sneered. Lily reddened about six shades.

"N-no, I do _not_, Tuney!" Lily tried to recover herself.

"Lily and Severus sittin' in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

Lily did the only thing she could think of in that ind of situation — she began to cry.

* * *

Everything looked so different that night. At about 11:00, Lily climbed out her window, down a trellis into her front yard. Gripped tightly in her hand was the pterodactyl. Once on firm ground, she put it in her jacket pocket. After looking at the house once to check if she had awoken anyone, she began to run down her street, on a mission to find Spinner's End.

She had a vague idea as to where it was, but vague ideas are even more vague in the dark. She knew it was by the river... how hard could it be to find? She began to take streets at random, though never second-guessed her choices; maybe she really did know where she was going after all. As she progressed, trees in front of houses disappeared, homes got smaller, dirtier. The roads were bumpy and strewn with trash and similar things. Shouts sounded from some houses. One more turn, and Lily found herself right in front of the Snape house.

The house itself looked uneven, like one side was sinking more quickly into the ground than the other, as it all seemed to be slowly disappearing into the earth. A chicken was tethered to a stake in the ground. A horned owl hooted haughtily from the roof. and two figures silhouetted by the flickering light inside were fighting.

One figure was tall and imposing (and slightly misshapen, Lily thought), the other was backing away. Being so close to the house, Lily could hear everything.

"Look what you did to me!" the tall shadow shouted; it was male.

"I-I'm s-sorry..." the other — Mrs Snape — quivered.

"Sorry?! _Sorry_?! I can't go to bloody work cuz of your bloody potions mutating my whole bloody body!" the man yelled, "Look at me! I'm purple! I'm growing bloody spikes off me spine! What did you do to me?!"

"N-nothing. Your headcold will go away now! I can get you back to normal, I promise!" Mrs Snape was pleading now.

"A headcold?! All this for a bloody headcold?!"

"Well, it probably worked differently on you because you're a Muggle," she suggested.

"Don't use that M-word in my house, you b— " He used a word that Lily had never heard before, but by the cry from Mrs Snape, she knew it wasn't good, and vowed to never use it. As Lily got lost ing the screaming back and forth, the front door opened, and out stepped Severus.

Lily bolted. What else could she do? In her haste and shock, she'd completely forgotten her mission. She bounded the whole way back to her house, shimmied up the trellis in record time, and flew into bed, where she cried until the sky lit up with the dawn.

* * *

That morning, as Severus went outside to feed the chicken, a small plastic object caught his attention by the window. It was Lily's pterodactyl, fallen from her pocket, when Lily had seen his at his most vulnerable point. Her mission had not failed, after all.

He kept it with him till the end of his days.

The End

* * *

I know that imaginig the older Snape with an orange pterodactyl is laughable, but in this story they're like nine years old, okay? And sorry Lily is so whiny-sounding. Last summer was hard on me.

Reviews are welcome. Flames are... not welcomed, unless you have a legitimate reason. Thank you for your time.


End file.
